


Without A Care

by Goldberry



Series: A Series of Promises [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldberry/pseuds/Goldberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how dangerous it was, it was very hard not to hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without A Care

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for near molestation/rape, so please use your own discretion when reading. Nothing actually happens but the situation could be triggering.

She awoke to a hard hand slapping over her mouth and dead weight on her thighs. Her hand went for the kunai underneath her pillow automatically only to find it missing. Her attacker laughed in cold amusement and she made an angry sound underneath his palm, wriggling beneath him. He was sitting on her to keep her legs still, one hand over her mouth while the other caught one of her free wrists. She could not see much of his clothing but he wore a mask over his face like a civilian bandit. Not a ninja, she didn’t think. He would have killed her without waking her. However, the thought that a mere criminal had somehow gotten past all her traps and alarms was infuriating – and a little terrifying.   
  
She tried to turn her head towards the next bedroom where Ranmaru slept, as if she would somehow be able to see him through the wall, but her captor checked the movement easily and she felt a horrible sense of helplessness. Ran had been sick the last couple of days, crying almost nonstop with a fever that just wouldn’t go down no matter what she tried. He had only just started to get well the night before and once he’d finally fallen into a healing sleep, she’d collapsed as well, drained physically as well as mentally. There was no instruction manual for Ranmaru, no teacher that could tell her which technique to use to overcome the problem at hand, no teammate to give her encouragement. That he had gotten well had been a stroke of sheer luck and not due to any skill on her part. Was she so exhausted from the last few days that she’d let her guard down? Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure she’d even checked the security around the cabin since Ran had fallen ill. It was possible she’d allowed these men – there was more than one, she could hear someone else moving about in the living area – to waltz right in unimpeded.   
  
“I never knew someone lived out in this ol’ cabin,” the thief said. His gaze traveled down from her face to her chest. “’Specially not a girl.” She jerked under his hold and he exerted more pressure on her in attempt to hold her still. In the other room, something fragile crashed to the floor, shattering, and the noise woke Ranmaru who immediately started crying. The man holding her cursed.   
  
“What the _hell_ are you doing out there?” he shouted, and his accomplice bumbled into her bedroom, also masked, with his arms full of things he’d apparently thought worth stealing.   
  
“I didn’t know there was a baby!” he snapped, obviously irritated by Ranmaru’s cries. His eyes went to her and he grunted as if he hadn’t expected her either. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”  
  
Her attacker snarled back. “Like hell!” He turned his head to look down at her again. “I bet this is one of Lord Kai’s own concubines – probably his baby too! What’ll you think he’ll give us if he learns they’re missing?”  
  
His partner scoffed. “She ain’t Lord Kai’s, you idiot. He never lets any of his women out of his sight. So, unless you’re gonna sport with her, let’s go.”  
  
The big lug on top of her stilled as if considering his prospects. Tenten didn’t wait for him to make up his mind. She stabbed her fingers into his eyes with her free hand and he released her automatically to grab his face, screaming. A quick jab upwards with the bottom of her palm broke his nose and he fell sideways off the bed, choking on his own blood.   
  
His partner cursed and dropped his stolen goods to fumble for the knife at his belt. She halted that idea by breaking his wrist and taking it from him, twirling it once before planting it in his heart. He dropped with a look of surprise and she turned, not bothering to watch him die, to look down on the man who just a few seconds before had contemplated raping her for “sport”.   
  
“W..wait,” he croaked, his voice muffled by his mess of a nose. “W..we wasn’t gonna harm you…”   
  
She crushed his windpipe with her bare foot.   
  
Then she stood there in only her nightgown with two dead bodies at her feet and Ranmaru screaming in the next room and cried silently. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she drug the men outside one by one, tripping over tree roots in the dark and bruising her bare feet. She didn’t have the strength to bury them. She’d wait until morning to do it, when the weight on her heart wasn’t so heavy.   
  
She cleaned up the blood from the bedroom and broken shards of a vase she’d collected from somewhere. Only afterwards did she go to Ranmaru and lift him gently from his crib, froggily shushing his distressed cries.   
  
“It’s alright, little guy,” she murmured. “I know how you feel.”  
  
It took a little coaxing but Ran quieted a few minutes later and Tenten sat with him in the rocking chair, blank-faced and overwhelmed with the events of the last few days. She had no regret over killing the lowlife thieves. She had to protect Ranmaru. No one could be allowed to know that he was still alive and a tale of a baby in the woods would certainly be strange enough to reach Pain’s ears.   
  
No, it was the overwhelming sense that she had put Ranmaru in danger _herself_. There was no excuse for not checking the traps. No matter how tired she was, no matter how much she hated the lonely exile of their little cabin, Ranmaru’s life depended on her actions. She could not let him down. She could not let Hinata down.   
  
She fell asleep with that thought in her mind and woke with it reflected in Neji’s pearl-gray eyes. His hand was on her shoulder, his expression tight.   
  
“What happened?”  
  


* * *

  
  
“You’re shaking,” he observed quietly. They were in her bedroom, Ranmaru fed and napping, and Neji was holding her by the elbows so he could look at her. His grip on her was controlled, as if he thought she might flit away if he gentled it. His eyes saw everything.   
  
“I’m just tired,” she replied. It was a moment before she was able to meet his gaze however and she knew she wasn’t very convincing. A muscle moved in his jaw.   
  
“I saw the bodies outside. What happened here, Tenten?”  
  
There was steel in his voice and she hurried to reassure him, knowing where his thoughts were heading. “They’re not Pain’s. They only wanted to rob me. They seemed surprised to realize anyone was actually living here.” Neji’s hold on her loosened a little but he was still searching her face and she sighed. No matter how hard she tried, she could never trick him. “I’m alright,” she continued, more softly. She reached up and pressed her fingertips to his cheek. “Just tired, is all. The baby has been sick and I…” She swallowed. “He could have been hurt because of me, Neji.”  
  
Neji’s answer was very matter-of-fact. “It looks to me as if he was saved by you.”  
  
She had no answer for that and so closed her eyes and leaned into him, taking comfort in the feel of his arms around her. It had been three weeks since he had been there last and to be able to touch him again was a gift in and of itself. She had nightmares sometimes that he died out there alone and she kept waiting for him to return, never knowing what fate had befallen him.   
  
“I missed you,” she whispered into his shirt, one arm looping itself around his neck. He leaned downed and kissed her slowly, lingering – his way of saying he missed her too.   
  
The kiss quickly became something else, a product of too much time apart, living in constant fear that something would happen to the other, isolated as they were in their own separate worlds. Neji moved her backwards towards the bed until she could fold gracefully upon it, bringing him down with her. She threaded her fingers through his long hair, breathing in the windy scent of him as he leaned over her on his elbows.   
  
Time passed in a blur after that. She thought of nothing but Neji’s hands on her, the sound of his voice saying her name, the feel of him inside her. There was a little more edge to his movements than usual, as if he too needed their connection so much it hurt at times. She had thought it was just her, that she was going crazy out there in the woods all alone. She could admit to herself that she had been a little jealous of Neji. He was free to move around the country, doing surveillance on Pain and his minions, fighting in his own way for the memory of their loved ones.   
  
Now, though, she wondered if he wasn’t just as trapped, and that coming to her was the escape he needed as well.   
  
Afterwards, as he lay warm and sated against her, she ran her fingers gently over his back, murmuring to him as she had done for Ran when he’d been ill and needed soothing. She told him about the garden she had started out back and how horrid she was at getting anything to grow but tomatoes. She told him about Ran and how he had started trying to talk and seemed particularly occupied with playing with his food, rather than eating it.   
  
With each story, she could feel that edge to him dissipate, smoothing away under her fingers. A few moments later he had relaxed enough to tell her what he had seen on his travels, how Pain was reorganizing his shinobi and how some still searched for the last Hokage’s child. Neji and Tenten had taken pains to make it look like Ran had died at birth but without absolute proof that Ran was dead, there were still those that looked for him, hoping for Pain’s favor.   
  
“I’ve heard rumors too, of marauders in the high passes, in the woods around the smaller villages.” Neji paused, choosing his words. “There are whispers of a resistance…”  
  
Tenten’s hand stilled against his skin. “Resistance?” Something small bloomed dimly, deep inside her, and her voice dropped. “Konoha ninja?”  
  
Neji sat up. “I don’t know,” he replied. His voice was distant, as if he wouldn’t allow himself to consider it possible. “No one seemed to be able to describe them, but Pain’s inner circle has been busier lately. Something has stirred them up.”  
  
Unlike him, Tenten dared to hope. “There were teams out on assignment when Pain attacked…”  
  
“Most of them returned when the war broke out.”  
  
She nodded, distracted. “But there were _Genin_ teams as well, some of them too far to be called back quickly…”  
  
She and Neji looked at each other a long moment.   
  
“It’s possible,” he conceded quietly, “but not probable.” He looked away. “And even if there are survivors, we can’t contact them.”  
  
Briefly, she wanted to argue with him but the feeling died when she realized they couldn’t trust anyone not to turn Ran over to Pain, not even former Konoha ninja. Some might even think they were doing a service to their people by doing so, if it ended the war between the Countries. It was perhaps far-fetched but it wasn’t as if they could take the chance. Ran was too important. The fewer people who knew of his existence, the better.   
  
In the next room, Ran started crying.   
  
Before she could move, Neji rose from the bed. “I’ll get him,” he offered. He touched her cheek briefly before heading next door and she shifted against the pillows, still thinking.   
  
No matter how dangerous it was, it was very hard not to hope.   
  


* * *

  
  
They buried the bodies of the two would-be thieves that evening. They might have burned them once but a fire that large would be noticed so Neji dug a hole large enough for two. It was a gruesome business and not one she enjoyed. She forced herself to search the bodies, looking for anything interesting. She came up with only a few coins, knives, and a handful of lint. As she’d known, they had not been working for Pain.   
  
“Fools,” she muttered and picked up a shovel to help Neji cover them with earth.   
  
Afterwards, they took Ran and went to the river for a bit. Tenten thought the fresh air would do him some good after being ill. Neji spread a blanket over the grass for them and she sat Ran down, kneeling close by and grinning as Ran wobbly sat for a moment before realizing he was free to crawl around. At ten months, he was getting more confident about crawling and a few days before she thought she’d heard a garbled “mama” from him, though in her excitement she might have been mistaken.   
  
Now she watched him crawl towards Neji with a maternal pride she had never imagined she would have. Of all her dreams, children had never really been one. She’d always sort of thought she would die young, as most kunoichi do, on some battlefield somewhere in the name of duty. And she hadn’t minded that. She’d known what being a ninja meant. Now though, she was glad she had the chance to feel what it was like to be a mother. Ran might not have been hers biologically, but he was her son in every other way that mattered.   
  
“You said he’s been sick?” Neji questioned, one of his fingers caught in Ran’s tiny grip. She nodded, the smile slipping from her face as she remembered how awful the last few days had been.   
  
“He had a high fever. I’m not sure what caused it but it went away on its own the day before yesterday.” She stilled as Neji brushed Ran’s shirt up, revealing the vivid black tattoo on his back. He studied the markings critically and then straightened two fingers.   
  
“ _Byakugan_.”  
  
The veins around Neji’s eyes tightened as he gazed at the child’s back and Tenten felt herself tense, wondering what he saw there. She felt nothing from Ran, no sense of the well of chakra that was hidden within him. He’d never even behaved as if the tattoo bothered him.   
  
“What do you see?” she asked quietly.   
  
“The inner rings have been chafed at,” Neji replied, referring to the concentric rings of symbols that made up Ran’s seal. “The fox has been testing his prison.”   
  
“Do we need to…?” she trailed off, unsure of how the two of them would re-work the seal. It was not a technique she was familiar with, though she thought Neji might have some idea as he had been present when Hinata had performed the sealing over the bulge of her stomach the first time.   
  
Neji let the Byakugan fade. “No, they’re holding.” He smoothed Ran’s shirt back down. “The fever was a side effect, there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.”  
  
She nodded, still a bit uneasy and not entirely relieved of guilt. There was so much they didn’t know about the _Kyuubi_. They had grown up with Naruto but they had never been close enough to know how he dealt with the fox in the back of his mind. And one day the seal would break. Without maintenance it would degrade over time. She could only hope that, when it did, Ran would be grown and strong enough to face the _Kyuubi_ with his own power.   
  
“What are you thinking?”   
  
She blinked, refocusing on Neji and smiled slightly. “You don’t know?” she teased and swallowed a laugh at his unimpressed look. “I was just wondering…” she paused, searching for the right words. “I was just wondering if we did the right thing.”  
  
Neji said nothing but his steady gaze was an invitation to continue.   
  
“I mean, maybe… maybe we should have left Fire Country.” Her gaze slid to Ran and then out over the water of the river. “Ran is growing up in secret. He’ll never have friends, or go to school, or tease girls or anything that normal children do. Those men… they weren’t after Ran but once they knew of him they’re lives were forfeit. I’m not regretting what I did, it was necessary, but I can’t help but think it wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t stayed, if we’d taken him far away from Pain and this war.” She grimaced. “I feel like… like we might have made his choice for him.”  
  
She very carefully did not use the word ‘fate’.   
  
“His eyes would give him away no matter where we took him, Tenten,” Neji replied quietly. “We chose to stay nearby in order to keep watch on Pain but even if we left now, Ran would still be a Hyuuuga and the Last Hokage’s heir. It’s in his blood.” Ran gurgled in Neji’s lap and Neji paused to rescue a lock of his hair before Ran could put it into his mouth. “But he will still have a choice. When he’s old enough, we’ll ask him to make it, and if he wants to leave all this behind,” Neji glanced at her, “then we’ll go.”  
  
“We’ll go?” she repeated softly, holding his gaze. His hand reached out, traced her cheek.   
  
“We’ll go.”  
  
She wondered how much it cost him to say that. The thought hurt her too. She wanted revenge on the people who had murdered her family, her friends, and destroyed almost everything she’d ever loved. But she loved Ran, too, and more than anything – even vengeance – she wanted his happiness.   
  
She was leaning forward to give Neji a kiss when several things happened at once. A horn sounded in the forest, a flock of birds burst from their cover across the river, Neji’s head swung around, Byakugan activating even as the hard bolt of an arrow slammed into her shoulder, staggering her. She barely had time to register what had happened, the force of the arrow’s flight flinging her backwards until she lay flat on her back, gasping up at the star-filled night sky over her head.   
  
Faintly, she heard Neji call for her, but his voice was almost drowned out by an explosion nearby, fire flashing briefly in the dark. Her traps. Someone had set one off.   
  
She rolled over onto her good shoulder, pushing herself halfway into a sitting position. All around her there was noise. She could hear men moving through the woods, horses & dogs, voices raised in surprise and anger.   
  
Neji was five feet away, crouched and hugging Ranmaru to his side, one hand over the child’s mouth. Ran was crying, his face turning red with exertion and her heart went out to him. She caught Neji’s pale eyes in the dark.   
  
Neji’s mouth tightened into a line and then he took a step back and disappeared into the shadows under the trees, taking Ran with him. She breathed out in relief. For a moment she hadn’t been sure he would leave her but, just like everything else, it was necessary. She was not easily identifiable as a ninja, but Neji & Ran were.   
  
Someone stumbled over her in the dark and she tried to stifle a groan as the movement jostled the arrow in her shoulder, causing white hot pain to streak down her left side. The man cursed and scrambled to his feet. He had a long bow in his hand and his eyes widened when he saw her.   
  
“My lord! My lord! Come quick!” And then he surprised her. He dropped his bow into the grass and knelt by her side, hands up in a pacifying gesture. “Forgive me, I did not see you there, miss. We were hunting and a shot went awry.” She could not tell for certain in the dim light but his clothes seemed to be of rather high-quality and the way he spoke seemed to suggest that he was of rather high status. This was confirmed when another man rode up on a horse. This one she could see better and there was no mistaking what he was.   
  
“What’s happened, Lasa?”  
  
Lasa straightened slightly. “An accident, Lord Kai. I… think I shot her.”  
  
Lord Kai cursed and then turned in his saddle to shout over his shoulder. “Where’s the medic? KEN! Get over here!”  
  
Then there were a group of people around her, crowding her, all talking, some holding back hunting dogs on leashes, horses snorting, voices, voices…  
  
She was going to pass out. She tried to fight it but it was just too much, she couldn't breathe properly. Living in relative solitude for so long, her senses were no longer used to handling such an overwhelming tide of information. There were too many of them.   
  
Tenten let go and everything went black.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
She awoke several hours later in her own bed.   
  
She froze immediately, out of sorts, and a terrible anxiety rose in her. _Ran, where is he? Did they…?_  
  
“It’s alright, miss.”   
  
She turned her head slightly to regard the young man from earlier. He was sitting next to her bed, watching her with a certain amount of worry. In the light of her lamp she could see him better. He had a smooth, open face – the look of a boy who had never had to fight a war. She watched him warily. Unfortunately, those were usually the kind that caused the most trouble.  
  
“Ken removed the arrow from your shoulder. It was a clean wound, thank goodness. It’ll heal quickly, though it might leave a scar.” He seemed genuinely dismayed at the idea of that and she almost laughed. It would be nothing compared to some of the others she sported.   
  
Lasa was telling the truth though. She could tell that the medic had done his job. Her left arm was resting in a sling to better keep her injured shoulder immobile. Carefully, she sat up, causing Lasa to jump out of his chair to steady her until she was seated comfortable on the edge of her bed.   
  
“Thank you,” she said quietly and Lasa laughed suddenly, brightly.  
  
“You do speak! We weren’t sure, you know. You seemed frightened of the group before and some of the others thought maybe you were some sort of wild woman, living out here all on your own.” He grinned at her, sharing a joke but she regarded him evenly until the smile tilted off his face.   
  
“I do live here alone,” she replied.   
  
Lasa’s eyebrows drew together. “But-“  
  
A knock at the door interrupted him and Lord Kai entered before either of them could answer. He was an older gentleman, with graying, dark hair and a steely gaze. A good leader of men, some said, but also a terrible womanizer. The number of his concubines and consorts seemed to grow every time she heard it talked about.   
  
Lasa bowed to the daimyo. “My lord.”  
  
“I see your awake,” Lord Kai addressed her, eyeing her shrewdly. “I must apologize for my man here. He’s a good shot, just apparently not at night.” He arched a brow in Lasa’s direction and the young man’s face turned red with embarrassment. “I’m glad to see you are alright, young lady.”  
  
“Thank you for taking care of me,” she answered, bowing her head slightly.   
  
“Of course,” Lord Kai answered. “You must forgive us for invading your home as well, but it seemed the safest place to put you. May I ask, however, if you live alone?”  
  
Something cold gripped her heart but she ignored it, kept her voice steady. “I do.”  
  
“You see, your answer perplexes me, because the room next to yours seems to be a nursery.” Lord Kai’s eyes were flint hard. “I’m a lenient man, miss, but I had heard stories of bandits living in this wood, one of the very reasons I decided to take this little hunting trip. Now, whether or not you have a child is none of my concern, but if your husband is involved with these criminals I would have you—“  
  
“My husband left me,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. She let her eyes fill with unshed tears, her lower lip trembled. “Our baby died a few days ago and he left. He…he…” She hitched her shoulders and bowed her head, sniffling a bit as if she were trying to hold back tears.   
  
Across from her, Lord Kai shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, miss. Most unfortunate.” He hesitated and he and Lasa exchanged a look she didn’t understand. “I think it would be best then, if you came with us.”  
  
Her head jerked up. “What?!”  
  
Lord Kai’s expression was resolute. “A young woman living out her alone? With bandits nearby? It’s preposterous. You can come with us to my estate and from there you can contact your family, if you have any.” His tone rather suggested he hoped she didn’t have any. He nodded once at Lasa. “See that her things are packed and ready to go.”  
  
“Yes, my lord.”  
  
“But, wait, I—“  
  
But Lord Kai was already striding out of the room, followed quickly by Lasa who closed the door behind him, a slightly guilty look on his face.   
  
Immediately, she was on her feet, her eyes cataloguing everything in the room. She had a knack for making a weapon out of anything and it wouldn’t take much to take out Kai’s men. They weren’t ninja and, what was more, was they had no clue _she_ was. They would never expect her to fight back.   
  
Then again, could she afford to? The moment she did they would know what she was and if Kai wanted to avoid problems with Pain and his shinobi then he would have to hand her over, assuming she wasn’t able to break free from his men. If she did break free… they would never be able to return to the cabin.   
  
She turned her head in the direction of the forest outside her window, to the dark trees that kept Neji and Ranmaru safe. Help would have to come to her.   
  
And no sooner had she thought that then the night exploded, light flashing and smoke rising from the trees. The glass in her window frame rattled and her heart leapt. More of her traps were being triggered, but this time not by Kai’s men.   
  
“Neji,” she whispered.   
  
Outside her door she could men shouting about bandits and just outside she saw some of them swing up onto horses, dogs barking with excitement. Taking a breath, she opened the door and stepped out of her room, drawing Lasa’s attention who was standing by the main doorway, looking out into the night with wide eyes.   
  
“There you are, miss,” he said quickly. “Looks like Lord Kai was right about those bandits! He’s ordered us all after them, you as well. Can you ride?”  
  
She affected a weak expression. “I… I’m not sure…”  
  
“Not to worry. You can ride with me.”  
  
By the time he saddled and readied his horse, Kai and most of his men were gone. Lasa swung a leg up into the saddle and turned his mare around, reaching a hand down for her earnestly.   
  
She looked up at him for a moment, wondering what would become of him, before pivoting smoothly and breaking into a run for the forest’s edge. It startled him and she gained precious seconds on him before he kicked his horse into a gallop after her. By then she had hit the tree line however and she used the low branches and high roots against him, forcing him to weave a path around trees or risk breaking his mount’s forelegs. Panting, she ran and jumped and every movement jostled her shoulder until it burned with a steady, aching pain. Behind her, she could hear horse hooves bearing down on her and she quickened her pace.   
  
She knew where it was she had to go.   
  
“Lady, please, stop! We won’t hurt you, please!”  
  
She ignored him, concentrating solely on the ground underneath her feet, the slope of the terrain. Even so, the ravine she sought suddenly yawned before her and for a brief, flickering moment, she felt a spike of surprise and fear.   
  
“Lady!”  
  
She didn’t stop.   
  
She flung herself off the edge of the rocky ravine. It had been dug by the river and the fall would be just enough to kill her, and even if it didn’t she would probably drown anyway. Wind whistled by her ears, whipping tears from her eyes and she could hear Lasa calling out to her in dismay.   
  
She could only hope that it was dark enough. That he couldn’t see her clearly.   
  
Hissing in pain, she brought up both her arms, fingers flickering into familiar seals. A moment later she disappeared, a log falling with a splash into the river below and drifting away with the current.   
  


* * *

  
  
It was almost morning. Staggering through the trees, she could tell by the subtle lightening of the sky, birds waking and singing sleepily in the hushed, pre-dawn air. She had kept moving most of the night, even after the explosions had stopped and she was sure Kai’s men were long gone. She could not take the risk that there were no stragglers and she had to keep away from the cabin long enough for Kai’s men to clear out and for Lasa to report that she had killed herself. With her dead there would be no reason for them to ever return to the cabin. She would have to double the security around it, of course, but she did not think any of his men would bother coming back there. Not for a woman of no consequence, not when they had bandits to chase after.   
  
Tired and worn down from the long night, she paused to lean against a large maple, resting her head against the bark. It was so strange how things turned out. She thought she’d already experienced a lifetime in the last two years but it seemed there was always more.   
  
Sighing, she closed her eyes and bent her head, her hair falling over her shoulders as she hadn’t bothered to put it up that morning after Neji’s arrival. Would it ever be over for them? Would they ever, all three of them, be able to live among people again without fear or lying? It was a strange thing to desire, but she had never been the best at subtlety. To walk out into broad daylight again, to be among people… Perhaps one day Ranmaru would grant her wish.   
  
A broad, silent shape appeared on the tree limb above her head and she smiled tiredly into the darkness.   
  
“Neji.”  
  
He dropped down in front of her, his arms immediately winding around her waist and pulling her against him securely. She looped an arm around his neck, tilting her body slightly to avoid pressing on her bad shoulder.   
  
“Are you alright?” he asked near her ear. She nodded against him.   
  
“Just the arm, but it’ll heal.” She pulled back slightly, looking up into moon-colored eyes worriedly. “Ran?”  
  
He glanced upwards and she followed his gaze to spot a basket of some sort sitting on the tree limb. She arched an eyebrow. It looked suspiciously like her laundry basket.   
  
Smiling slightly, she pressed her forehead against his shoulder in relief. “You set off the traps?”  
  
“All of them,” he said grimly. His hand cupped the back of her neck. “The cabin?”  
  
“It should be safe to go back in a bit,” she replied. “I made it look as if I had jumped off the ravine about a mile away. They won’t be looking for me.”  
  
She felt him exhale. “Can we be sure of that?  
  
“As sure as we can be of anything, I suppose.” She lifted her head slowly. “Can I see him?”  
  
Neji brought the basket down for her and she peered into it, finding Ran nestled in some sheets she had hung to dry, sleeping soundly with his thumb in his mouth. She smiled.   
  
“Just like Naruto. A long, adventurous night and already sleeping without a care in the world.”  
  
“Tenten.”  
  
She looked up but he said nothing else, just watched her with those eyes of his. She kept the smile and leaned up to kiss him, as she had meant to do hours ago.   
  
“Everything’s alright,” she told him when they parted. “I believe in us. In him.” They would go on. After all, what other choice did they have?  
  
Neji’s expression cleared.   
  
“One day,” he said and she nodded in agreement, a ray of sunshine growing in her mind.   
  
“One day.”  
  
It was a promise.  
  
  
  
 **END.**


End file.
